Which preseason tier does ESPN have Notre Dame football falling into?

Many of us have been overloaded with preseason projections and polls, but ESPN looked at them a bit differently on Friday and thought highly of Notre Dame.

David Hale ranked every single FBS team (subscription required), all 134 of them into tiers, and while the Irish didn’t make his top one, they did place in the second. His first set of teams, which he named the “Fantastic Four” have Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon and Texas as the top College Football Playoff title contenders.

Notre Dame was placed in the second group, along with Alabama, Ole Miss and Penn State. Hale labeled tier 2 as “Wait, what’s Alabama doing here?”

Hale didn’t go into much detail as to why the Irish landed in this spot, but you have to assume its due to them being just behind the top four teams in terms of legit chance to capture the CFP crown.

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